India joins unwanted COVID-19 1 million club
It’s a club no country wants to be part of, but Friday (July 17) saw India join the U.S. and Brazil in passing 1 million cases of coronavirus.
India’s population is around 1.3 billion, so experts are saying one million is still relatively low, but infections are spreading further into the countryside and smaller towns, putting further strain on healthcare systems.
Efforts to contain the virus have seen authorities impose fresh lockdowns and designated new containment zones, but some areas have struggled to keep people indoors.
Epidemiologists say India is still likely months from hitting its peak, while public health officials say they now need to work on lowering the mortality rate.
One official said a critical challenge is how to appropriately allocate hospital beds.
Last week India overtook Russia as the world’s third-most-infected COVID-19 country.
The official number of cases in the country on Friday was listed as 1,003,832, but experts have called that quote “a gross underestimate” and has likely left out many people who may have been asymptomatic.
That compares to 3.6 million confirmed cases in the United States and 2 million in Brazil - countries with less than a third of India's population.
